ANTROPOLOGY COURSE

1. ANDROCENTRIC WORLDVIEW: Masculine domination was constructed in antiquity with

inhabits of both men and women through a specific historical labour of construction which
was unconscious and developed through history influencing our lives like for instance in the
modern “Division of labour”.

2. SEXUALLY HIERARCHIZED WORLD: This distinction between man and woman is clearly
visible in the sexually hierarchized world where the importance of a person is established
by the sex (gender) of their bodies.
Where definitely we can see at the peak the man and at the last place the woman.
This unfortunately affects all the sectors of human life with a huge disadvantage for women.

3. OBJECTIFICATION: What this sexualisation lead inevitably to is of course the

objectification of women bodies perpetrated by men.
From their superiority position they think to have the right and the opportunity to criticize
and to comment women bodies with the belief of owning it and to be able to decide on how
these feminine bodies have to look like, because in their mindset women should gratify men
‘sight.
For these reasons women need to follow beauty standards imposed by men and by society
too, in this way body schemes are built and that affects obviously women but also men are
involved in these expectations.
Indeed we may observe a dichotomy in the perception of body which for man is “big” while
for woman is “small”.
In particular a man is ashamed for a small body part otherwise for a woman is shaming to
be big because it is often associated to fat.

4. INTERNALIZED MISOGYNY: This need to fit in beauty standards to be perceived as

“valuable” by the “strong sex” lead women to an internalized misogyny, where women
unconsciously start following men rules to reduce their sense of inadequacy derived from
the most powerful weapon of men which is the gaze.
In this masochistic game played unconsciously by women, the gaze is not seen as negative
but, plays a role of reassurance where women feel appropriate without realizing that they
are being oppressed by this sick masculine domination.

As Bourdieu quotes in his text (1998): “"The structure imposes its constrains on the two
terms of the relationship, and therefore on the dominant themselves, who can benefit from
it while being, in Marx's phrase, 'dominated by their domination"
(Bourdieu, 1998, p. 69)”